ST. THOMAS
MINISTRIES FOUNDATION, INC.
2306 GULL LANE
SARASOTA, FL 34237-7102
941-954-0330 Cell 941-5381250
October 24, 2009
Dear Walter:
Barbara just now finished
reading the body of this letter and her reaction was the same as her reaction
to all of my occasional letters to persons who might have some interest in the
work of St. Thomas Ministries Foundation.
She points out that nobody reads my missiles because they are obscurely
written – not easily understood, indistinct, and undistinguished. I reacted angrily that you always seem to
enjoy my letters. She responded that you
are awash in pain so great that even my obtuse prattle provides you some slight
relief. I explained that you enjoy my
personal theological explorations because they touch on one of the two loves of
your life – Jesus Christ and Geraldine. “Then
address the letter to Walter,” Barbara retorted. To clear the air once and for all, I am
addressing this letter to you, Walter.
However, if they wish to do so, I am allowing other persons to eavesdrop
on my monologue.
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION
Walter, one great consolation that we Christians have is
that we worship a God who Himself has wrestled with temptation. On Judgment Day, you and I shall face not an
Olympian abstraction who breezed through on his looks and money, nor a severe
and cold-hearted critic who eyes us coldly but by a man who Himself has faced
and struggled with every possible temptation the world could ever direct at our
suffering species. The temptations He
faced, however, occurred not by accident but by His own divine plan.
Before He began His mission, Mark
described Jesus as being driven into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted
by the devil. God, it is true, asks a
lot from us; and I suspect that both of us have sometimes resented it. The fact remains, however, that He does not
ask us to bear anything to which He has not subjected Himself. Hunger, thirst, misunderstanding, rejection, hate,
betrayal, torture, and death - He has faced them all - along with accompanying
temptations - selfishness, self pity,
pride, lust, resentment, grudges, vengefulness, bitterness, and despair. He fought and beat them all. He tells us that He will give us His Spirit
in order that we may do likewise.
The Catechism tells us that
the petition against temptation "goes to the root of the preceding
one" (2846). Recall that the
preceding one is the petition, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
those who trespass against us." Partly that's because it is temptation in which
sin is conceived, but also because the greatest temptation we feel in human
life is the temptation to refuse forgiveness to other persons. After all, forgiving (as distinct from
excusing) is, by definition, for persons who do not deserve it, since they
really sinned against us and we really are their victims. Because of this, we encounter an enormous
temptation to ‘stand on our rights’ instead of standing on the grace of Christ.
Like the proud ghost in C. S. Lewis's
wonderful little book The Great Divorce, we want to say, especially when
we are really wronged, "I only want my rights, I'm not asking for
anybody's bleeding charity." (To which our Guardian Angel replies in Lewis's
immortal words, "Then do at once ask for the Bleeding Charity.")
Walter, it is curious that you
and I pray to God - who has already put Himself through hell to win salvation
for us - to lead us not into temptation. It seems odd praying to a lifeguard that He
not deliberately drown us. Why on earth
are we asking God to not do what He would never do? Part of the problem is that the Greek
contains more ideas than can be adequately rendered in English. The Catechism tells us that it is difficult to
translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both
"do not allow us to enter into temptation" and "do not let us
yield to temptation."
Jesus is not teaching us that we
worship a capricious Olympian deity who might suddenly take an irrational
dislike to us, to lead us into temptation, and to try to damn us for fun. He is teaching us to worship His Father, the
God of Israel, who "cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no
one" (Jas 1:13). Our God is
absolutely consistent and is not about to suddenly and whimsically betray us
like a fairy or sprite in some pagan mythology. He is not perverse and mercurial, like the
frightening and half-mad Raven King who rules Faerie in Susanna Clarke's fine
novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. His purpose is from ages for all ages: He intends
to set us free from evil.
Part of His purpose, however, can
only be fulfilled with our cooperation. So,
just as we ask the Father God to give us what is good, so we ask Him to protect
us from temptation by helping us to avoid and to escape it. Brother,
do we ever need the help! Like
Oscar Wilde, we can resist anything but temptation. And being inveterate jailhouse lawyers, we want to turn salvation
into a legal game in which we seek not to love the Lord with all our heart,
mind, soul, and strength, but rather to see how much we can perpetrate and, as
the saying goes, "still be saved." We have several elaborate strategies for offering
as little as possible of ourselves to God, while trying not to appear as though
we are actually seeking our own way. In
my youth, I would have understood this in the sort of questioning that asks:
"How far can I go with my girlfriend before it's technically 'fornication'?"
The very question reveals a corrupt will
and intellect prior to technical commission of the sin. In the final analysis, it boils down to the
prayer, "Let me be led into temptation!" I observe the identical pattern even today with
other of my favorite sins.
So we are
taught to ask God to protect us from the path that leads to sin for the same
reason we ask Him for our daily bread: because grace is necessary for our
spiritual as well as for our physical life. We are locked in battle between flesh and
spirit, and we need all the help we can garner to know how to discern what God
is doing with us in the midst of this war zone.
As in any
struggle, it is sometimes difficult to tell friend from foe. The devil fights a guerrilla war and is not
loath to delivering low blows while donning the uniform of God's troops in
order to sow confusion, temptation, and death. Satan's temptation, of course, always consists
of using some good thing God has created to lure us into loving it in a
disordered way. ‘No fish bites a bare
hook’; it's always wrapped in a juicy worm that is, like the apple in the
Garden of Eden, tasty-looking both to our appetite and to our pride. The hook, however, is still death. This is why Paul tells us that Satan appears
as an "angel of light." Flesh
and the devil tell us to seek some good (it matters not what) by rejecting what
God has commanded. To break this ancient
habit, it is necessary that God permit us to face trials even as He teaches us
to avoid temptation - and to learn to tell the difference.
Therefore, as
the Catechism tells us: Holy Spirit enables us to discern trials that
are necessary for growth of the inner man, and temptation that leads to sin and
death. Also, we must discern between
being tempted and consenting to temptation. Finally, discernment unmasks the lie of
temptation, the object of which appears to be good, a delight to the eyes, and
desirable, when in reality its fruit is death.
God does not
want to impose the good on us, but desires that we freely are loving human
persons. Temptation has its usefulness. No one but God knows what our souls have
received from Him, not even we ourselves. Temptation reveals it, however, in order to
teach us to know ourselves, and, in this way, we discover our evil inclinations
and are obliged to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to
us.
Note that,
when we are not actively courting it, we are facing not sin but concupiscence. What is that, you ask? It is the weakened will, darkened intellect,
and disordered appetites that afflict every person, including baptized persons. Sadly, this term has fallen into such disuse
in contemporary culture that we can barely pronounce it. It leads to the tendency to conflate
temptation with sin itself. A pattern of
thought that afflicts many believers (and one that the devil, the accuser of
the brethren, loves) is, ‘If I were truly a Christian, I would not be having
these thoughts and feelings at all.’ This, however, is not so. Temptation only sprouts into the weed of sin
when we will to water it. That is why
the Church speaks of concupiscence not as sin but as the "tinder for
sin."
Precisely
because concupiscence is not sin, God sees our struggle to surmount temptation
not as a revelation of how rotten we are at heart but as the battlefield upon
which we can grow in virtue and grace. I
once had a conversation with a man who had struggled for years with homosexual
temptation. He was married and had been
a faithful husband and father; but, he feared that his temptation revealed how
sinful he really was. I told him that
the first thing he needed to know was that his Father in Heaven was proud of
him and said, "Well done, good and faithful servant." He had fought the good fight and loved his
wife and family by the power of grace. He burst into tears. Nobody had ever told him about concupiscence. He had been taught that temptation told us who
we ‘really’ are.
The truth is,
however, Jesus is the revelation of who we really are. He, and not sin, is the final word about the
human person. Therefore, Paul tells us,
"If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit" (Gal
5:25). Note what Paul does not say,
"Giving into temptation proves you are not really a Christian."
That's why he tells a Corinthian Church that is positively riddled with sinful
members: Do you not know that unrighteous
persons will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor
idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you! You, however, were washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (1 Cor 6:9-11).
Paul, aware
of the possibility of the radical misuse of our freedom, warns of the real
possibility of damnation for his flock, but does not enter into the game of
attempting to claim that baptized persons who sin, even gravely, are ‘not
really Christians.’ Instead, he accepts
the reality that they are, at least for the moment, bad Christians,
exhorts them to become what they actually are, and reminds them of what that
is. He does not say, "You pretended
to be washed, sanctified and justified." He takes it for granted that they were; and,
demands that they conform their lives to the truth of what Christ has revealed
in them through the sacraments.
The mystery
here is that sacraments are grace, not magic. They do not cancel our free will. Paul, of course, realizes that we shall fail
and fall, but that when we do, Christ's will is to forgive, and to heal and to call
us back to repentance once again, because He and not sin is the final word
about who we are. Note as well that,
instead of concluding from this that he does not need to bother rebuking the
wayward Corinthians because it will all turn out well in the end, Paul considers
it his duty to warn them that if they do not repent, they will not see the
Kingdom of God. In short, he understands
that just as "give us this day our daily bread" implies a duty to
feed hungry persons, so "lead us not into temptation" implies a duty
to strengthen, encourage, and, where necessary, rebuke those persons who are
struggling in the battle against temptation.
Saints teach us is
that the battle with sin is the most difficult and enduring battle. This is not
a discovery of saints in Christian Scripture but was already old news in Hebrew
Scripture. That's why Proverbs tells us,
"He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his
spirit is better than he who takes a city" (Prov 16:32). This imagery informs Christian Scripture as
well when Paul tells us: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His
might. Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For, we are not contending against flesh and
blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world
rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in
the heavenly places. Therefore, take the
whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and
having done all, to stand. Stand,
therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the
breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of
the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which
you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph 6:10-17).
The only weapon
that will ultimately carry us through this battle to victory is prayer with our
eyes wide open, vigilant, and alert. This
is how Jesus Himself defeated the Tempter, and it is why He calls us to
"watch and pray." We are neither
to live in fear of the enemy, nor in endless navel-gazing analyzing our own
faults. Instead, we are to live as Jesus
Christ did, fixing our eyes on our neighbor, on the Father God, and on the
prize to which Christ calls all of us when He prayed for us to the Father:
"Keep them in your name" (Jn 17:11). Only by such vigilant prayer can we overcome
the enemy of our souls.
Maranatha,
Fr. Jay
Very Rev.
Archpriest Jacob J. K. Longacre, Ph. D., S. S. B.
Holy Orthodox
Catholic Church – American Jurisdiction
Rather than give people fish to eat,
STMF teaches persons of all faiths to fish, thus becoming self-sufficient, so
that they and their families need not go hungry nor lack appropriate
employment.
St. Thomas Ministries Foundation,
Inc. is tax-exempt within 501 © (3) of the Internal Revenue Code of the USA
Rev. Jay Longacre may be emailed at frjaykl@yahoo.com
Look for his updates on MySpace and Twitter @ WRVJ
It seems that the only benefit of Home Schooling is mind control. It is bad enough we have parents telling their children (if they take the time to talk with their children) that what their teachers are teaching them is stupid, why do you need algebra, etc. 
What Does Mrs. Woods Drive?
Tiger Woods drives a black Cadillac SUV.
His wife?
She drives about 125 yards when his head isn't in the way...
A 3 AM drive (no golf pun) without shoes... A golf club rescue out the back window... it sure smells of domestic violence for the billion dollar golf star. You can avoid talking to cops for a traffic accident if no one else is involved? Not with domestic charges. Tiger left, smart. But the stigma would dent the royalties from endorsements. I could see the T Shirts: "I Hit Him With A 9 Iron And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt." Tiger is obviously the victim here. He was wise to walk (figuratively) and later to avoid police while he and the mrs. cleaned up the crime scene.
01 December 2009 in Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)